Croatia has recorded the biggest improvement among EU member states in the share of people unable to afford a week-long holiday away from home over the past decade, although affordability remains a challenge for many households, Poslovni dnevnik reported.
According to the latest Eurostat data, 32.6% of Croatian residents aged over 16 were unable to afford a week away from home in 2025.
That still placed Croatia seventh among EU countries with the highest share of people unable to afford such a holiday.
However, the longer-term picture is considerably different.
In 2015, 65.8% of Croatia’s population could not afford a week-long holiday away from home. Croatia was second bottom then, only ahead of Romania. The figure has therefore almost halved in ten years, falling by 33.2 percentage points, the largest improvement recorded among EU member states.
For comparison, Cyprus follows with a drop of 25.9 percentage points, Ireland with 21.6, Bulgaria with 21.3 and Poland with 19.5 percentage points.
Croatia has also moved considerably closer to the EU average.
In 2015, the Croatian figure was more than 30 percentage points above the EU average. By 2025, the gap had narrowed to around five percentage points.
The improvement has coincided with Croatia’s economic recovery, rising employment and increases in wages and pensions.
The trend has also been particularly visible among households with dependent children. In 2015, around 64% of people in such households could not afford a week away. By 2025, that share had fallen to 24.2%.
However, the benefits have not been evenly distributed.
Older people and single-person households remain among the groups most affected. Last year, 62.6% of people aged over 65 living alone could not afford a week away.
Among households with three or more children, the figure was 33.1%, compared with around 15% among households with one or two children.
The figures also show how far Croatia has travelled since the difficult years following the financial crisis. In 2012, the proportion of people unable to afford a week away reached 71.4%.
While Croatia still has room to improve its living standards, the decade-long change represents one of the most significant improvements in holiday affordability recorded anywhere in the EU.
Source: www.croatiaweek.com
